1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display input device including a display unit and an input unit such as a touch panel. The present invention also relates to an image forming apparatus with the display input device, such as a copier, a multifunction peripheral, a printer, or a fax machine.
2. Description of Related Art
For instance, an image forming apparatus such as a copier or a multifunction peripheral is equipped with many functions (e.g., scaling, aggregate print, two-sided print, and the like). The image forming apparatus may be equipped with a display input device having a screen with a liquid crystal display unit and a touch panel so as to select easily a function to be used among the many functions (set items). In addition, for example, a personal computer usually includes an input device such as a keyboard and a mouse, and a display device such as a monitor, so that many processes can be performed by using application software or the like.
Here, there is a limitation in the size of the liquid crystal display unit or the display, so that only limited information can be displayed in one screen. Therefore, in a computer, for example, a plurality of pages of data are arranged, and the pages are changed for viewing the contents (e.g., electronic document file). For instance, as to a computer, there is known a positional information display program for displaying positional information with respect to the entire electronic data, including a step for an electronic data processing unit to perform a predetermined process on the basis of unit data, a step for a link spot graph display unit to display a link spot graph in which a plurality of link spots associated with a plurality of unit data have the same arrangement as the electronic data, a step for a mark position deciding unit to decide a mark position that is a display position of the link spot corresponding to the unit data specified as a mark target, and a step for a mark display unit to display a mark at the mark position. This program is aimed at informing a position of noted unit data easily with respect to the entire electronic data.
Here, in a screen display of an operation panel of the image forming apparatus, set items to be displayed and the sequence thereof are registered as a program in advance. Then, when the program is called, setting screens for the preselected set items are sequentially displayed in the order of the set items included in the program so as to set the same. Thus, predetermined set items can be set easily.
When this program is called, it is preferable that a position of the current setting screen with respect to the entire program and the progress thereof can be grasped. Therefore, it is considered to display one image indicating a setting screen (e.g., icon that corresponds to the link spot in the conventional method) that is displayed until the setting is finished, for one setting screen, so as to be arranged on the operation panel of the image forming apparatus. However, a display area of the operation panel of the image forming apparatus is smaller than a display area of the computer display. Therefore, there can be problems in that all the icons cannot be displayed, or that a size of the icon is too small if all the icons are displayed, or that a ratio of the area of the icons to the entire display area is too large.
In addition, when setting of one set item is performed, a plurality of setting screens may be displayed for the setting. Therefore, it is considered to arrange and display images (e.g., icons) indicating set items on the operation panel not for each setting screen but for one unit of set items in the program in the screen display by the program.
However, the number of setting screens displayed for one set item (function) is different depending on set items. Therefore, even if the icons are display simply for each set item as one unit so as to display to indicate the current position with respect to the icon indicating set items, the progress in setting with the program cannot be grasped. For instance, it is impossible to grasp the entire workload, the number of screens left to be displayed for completion, the number of times of setting set values left, and the like. Therefore, there is a problem that it is difficult to grasp correctly an overview of the program or the current progress of setting in the program.
Here, in the above-mentioned known invention, the unit data corresponding to the link spot is each data obtained by dividing the electronic data arbitrarily. Usually, sizes of the unit data are not uniform. For instance, if only a part of the plurality of unit data is peculiarly large, the current position display is not always exact. Therefore, the conventional technique cannot solve the above-mentioned problem.